Luke Pitches for Privacy

Luke, 14

Hello my name is Luke and I’m a member of Who Cares? Scotland. My hobbies include movie knowledge, books and cataloguing and rating films. In 2021, me and my friend Daisy organised a Murder Mystery, where the Wee Clacks Voices group joined in on a night of finding out who the murderer was. It was good to write my own Murder Mystery. I enjoy watching them and I always thought I could do a good job. I was fed up reading terrible reveals so I decided to give it a go myself and see if I could do a better job. So it was fantastic to bring everyone together and see all my hard work come to life.

More recently, I was asked be part of The Lens Pitch, to be awarded money to build a hut out the back garden for more privacy. At my house we don’t have a lot of privacy when it comes to talking about sensitive subjects. A few months ago me and my key worker went to McDonalds to speak about sexual health because this was the only space we could find that was away from others. It turned out that a classmate of mine was in the next booth and they had heard every single word, which was really embarrassing. This is when we decided that a private space, like a hut in our garden would be better for privacy, chats, chilling out and family time.

I was told about the Lens Pitch where we had the chance to win money for a hut and jumped at the opportunity to get involved. This required me to make a pitch to the funding decision makers on why we needed the funding. My speech asked the funders why we had not been given the respect and dignity of a private space. I ended on letting them know that some of the young people in my house had not had the best start in life but by giving them this space we could give them hope for the future.

This speech received a standing ovation, and we were awarded £12,000 which will cover a lot of the costs and make it much more possible to build. I received really positive feedback from the judges and the audience. It was a wonderful experience, and I came across much more natural than I thought I would. I’m really proud of myself and all the staff who helped me along the way.

My ambitions for the future are to finish the hut – get it painted, insulated and make it a really chilled place to hang out. I am also looking forward to being involved with more Who Cares? Scotland events. Without Who Cares? Scotland and Oor Wee Clacks voices I don’t think I would have had the confidence to stand up in front of over 100 people and give my speech. I would like to thank my advocate Morag, Ross, Caroline, Bobby Jo, Sorcha, all my friends from the group and staff from my house.